New Octopus tariff for solar and battery users - Octopus Flux

Ron-ski

@94JDH Are you the same 94JDH that's on the OverClockers forum?

94JDH

Ron-ski said:

@94JDH Are you the same 94JDH that's on the OverClockers forum?

Yep that's me - I know you from there!

Niv

pensionpawn said:

Meatballs said:

Has anyone rerun the numbers of solar Vs battery and solar with flux?

It would appear the payback period for solar is greatly reduced, but including a battery isn't as beneficial as it once was? Ditto for adding a battery to an existing install.

My solar installation switched on over 7 years ago and I have been trying to financially justify a battery ever since. I just can't. Over the Easter holidays I became aware of Flux and having received an email from my FiT company stating that as I am on a Smart meter my 50% deemed export is being migrated to metered, I did the sums and decided to apply for Flux. Having done the sums to confirm moving to Flux was fiscally prudent, I did the sums again to see if the new tariff made a Powerwall fiscally viable. For me it did not. The way I see it is this. I have a split array, 4 kWs due East and 3.12 kWs due West. I currently import around 3.4 Mwhrs and have around 4.5 Mwhrs available for export. My spare 4.5 Mwhrs will net me around £1k1, an extra £900 over deemed export. I will pay extra for gas as I have a solar divert which I'll switch off as it's better for me to export the electric and use more gas. That will cost around £100 making Flux worth around £800pa. So what would a £12k 13.5 kWhrs Powerwall bring to the party? Well it could timeshift 13 kWhrs from Flux rate to peak export rate at £2.05 a day or £750 a year, taking ~ 16 years to RoI. In a best case (though not reality based) scenario the battery could also eliminate 3.4 Mwhrs of import at say an average of 33.5p by sacrificing export at 22.5p, a gain of £374 pa bringing the RoI of a Powerwall down to around 10 year, the warranty period. In other words, a battery is still too expensive for me as putting £10k into my Sipp and watching it increase to £12500 and then immediately taking £3125 tax free (of which £2500 the government just gave me) is more appealing. Flux, for me, grabs most of the low hanging fruit by itself.

Exactly the same calcs I did and came to the same conclusion - posted about it somewhere on here!

Maybe in a couple of years time when sodium batteries are a thing it may be worthwhile.

EcoScruples

Averaging 10kw export a day since we moved to Flux so a much better return than agile which we were on.
Nice and easy to avoid the peak charges too with a battery and should be fine now until October.

I wonder if Octopus priced the Flux tarriff around the next lot of energy prices or will we see a reduction in those rates too as Go and Intelligent have?

70sbudgie

Surely Flux is too new for a price change just yet? Tbh I'd rather keep the higher day time export than enjoy a lower off peak import. There must be a limit to the disparity between import and export prices.

Btw @94JDH I am on Flux and have solar and an EV - no other batteries. I read the T&Cs when I signed up as I was uncertain whether I would be able to. The 2 documents I had to provide for evidence were my MSC and DNO approval (G98 acknowledgment)

Unclefoobar

With my 5.55kW array and 5.12kWh battery I'm making a small profit each day for the last week



Still spending an average of £1.25 a day in gas though.

I'm currently £350 in credit with Octopus and reduced my monthly payments to £100 a month.

Does anyone know how the credit for exported energy works? I've not had a bill since starting Flux but it's only been 1 month. I think I'd rather it just sits in my octopus account and use as a credit during the winter months but not sure if that's how it works.

Ron-ski

Yes, its working very well My gas is averaging £3.13 a day though, so pretty much covered by the export.

Apparently its credited to your account once a month, mind you I'm still waiting for my FITS provider to confirm they've updated my account, Octopus will not pay me until they have confirmed that.

Meatballs

94JDH said:

I was going by this, has it changed then?
Or is it similar to Go and managing to be accepted without an EV?

If you apply you get emailed T&C's to sign. These are numbered and make no reference to a battery. Octopus pages are inconsistent. It's hard to find them as if you revisit the link it says you are already signed up.

There's these ones too: https://octopus.energy/policies/smart-tariffs-terms-and-condition/#octopusflux

Ron-ski

Meatballs said:

If you apply you get emailed T&C's to sign. These are numbered and make no reference to a battery. Octopus pages are inconsistent. It's hard to find them as if you revisit the link it says you are already signed up.

There's these ones too: https://octopus.energy/policies/smart-tariffs-terms-and-condition/#octopusflux

I've just looked at the T&C you linked to, and it clearly states a battery is required, but they clearly don't check, or require any proof.

2.8.5 To be eligible for this tariff you must:

• a) Have a Smart Meter for both import and export installed;
• b) Have a photovoltaic (PV) solar system and a home battery installed and operational at the property which we supply; and
• c) Provide us with your G98 / G99 certification from your distributor.
• d) Provide us with your MSC certificate for your PV system

Meatballs

Ron-ski said:

Meatballs said:

If you apply you get emailed T&C's to sign. These are numbered and make no reference to a battery. Octopus pages are inconsistent. It's hard to find them as if you revisit the link it says you are already signed up.

There's these ones too: https://octopus.energy/policies/smart-tariffs-terms-and-condition/#octopusflux

I've just looked at the T&C you linked to, and it clearly states a battery is required, but they clearly don't check, or require any proof.

2.8.5 To be eligible for this tariff you must:

• a) Have a Smart Meter for both import and export installed;
• b) Have a photovoltaic (PV) solar system and a home battery installed and operational at the property which we supply; and
• c) Provide us with your G98 / G99 certification from your distributor.
• d) Provide us with your MSC certificate for your PV system

Those ones aren't the same as those emailed. Octopus seem to keep 3 different versions of the t&C's and they aren't updated to match. The faqs on the website are often similar. For example they didn't state intelligent octopus was excluded from outgoing octopus for ages.

 Here is the current term on the emailed T&C's you are asked to accept. It's from a thread where they have now appear to have dropped the 9kWp limit: